by Mark McKay
‘What do you think Dubrovsky will do?’ asked Marielle, once he told her.
‘Nothing, I hope. Maybe he’ll realise he’s also vulnerable and will take the hint and leave us alone.’
‘He might decide to do exactly the opposite.’
‘Maybe. But if he now knows who I work for and he’s got any sense, he’ll just back off.’
He knew he had no reason to be certain of that, so he upped their security protocol. Whenever he was away from Marielle, be it day or night, the alarms were active. She had her gun with her in the studio, where she spent large parts of the day. She was still doing his portrait so they were together a lot of the time, anyway. And the only time Nick left the house was to go running every morning. He took his phone with him when he did that. If the alarm was triggered, he’d get a text message. And in the time it took to get back to the house, he hoped that Marielle would have put her firearms training to good use and shot any hostile visitors. He just hoped she wouldn’t shoot the not so hostile ones.
He hadn’t expected a response from Dubrovsky, so he was surprised when Herr Schmidt called.
‘I have a message for you, Mr Severance,’ said the lawyer. ‘If you speak to Ms Dubrovsky again, there will be consequences. That’s all.’
‘Thank you for letting me know.’
Schmidt didn’t stay on the line to shoot the breeze. Nick was a little puzzled, and then realised the Bolshoi had another week in Berlin. He doubted that he’d be able to pull that same trick twice, even if he wanted to. Elena would probably have Rubashkin following her around, now. He wondered how she liked that. Perhaps Rubashkin was a ballet aficionado, and they could pass the time discussing the technical merits of the arabesque vs the grand-jeté. He’d pay good money to hear that conversation.
They resumed their usual routine. He knew that he could hardly turn Marielle into an accomplished Aikido practitioner in the time he had left here, so he concentrated on one or two moves, over and over. An important principle in this martial art was in learning how to relax and move with your opponent. That was something that all beginners had trouble with. Their instinct when faced with someone who was out to damage them, was to tense up. But if you did relax and applied a technique correctly, no strength was involved. You could immobilise someone quite easily, or break something if you chose to. So they worked on an arm lock and a wrist lock. Done correctly and with a little extra pressure, the arm lock alone could dislocate both elbow and shoulder. She was a willing pupil and it helped that she had both arms free, now.
‘I’ll miss this when you’re gone,’ she said one day, after she’d followed his instructions and he was now face down on the living room floor for the fourth time in a row.
‘You’re definitely improving. Remember, the best defence in any confrontation is to run like hell.’
‘And if I don’t have that option?’
‘You have your gun. Don’t leave home without it.’
‘No, I suppose I won’t. I don’t think I’ll ever feel safe while that man is around.’
‘When I’ve gone, it might be useful if you kept up with some kind of martial art. It will give you some confidence.’
She released her hold on his arm and he stood up. ‘Yes, I might do that. Are we done for today?’
Her mood had changed. They’d moved as much of the furniture as possible to practise here, and she started pushing chairs back into their usual places. She had a sad, faraway look on her face.
‘What is it?’ he said.
She walked up to him. ‘We never talk about it, but I have to. I’m sorry, Nick. About Max and Alix and Kamiko. It was all my fault, and if that shit of a man decides to kill me it will be no more than I deserve.’
They looked at each other in silence for a long moment.
‘Say something,’ she said.
‘Fault doesn’t come into it, we’re way past that. We’ve both lost people we loved. I don’t want to lose you.’
‘Thank you,’ she whispered.
He put his arms around her and she came into his embrace. She was trembling and he held her tight, feeling the tension go out of her. She went almost limp against him. After a while she straightened up.
‘I should paint,’ she said.
‘I’ll have a shower,’ he said.
He went upstairs. It was an impossible situation. He could find somewhere quiet anywhere in the world and put himself out of harm’s way. Marielle didn’t have that option. Perhaps he could ask Mariko to provide her with a new identity and relocate her. And Louisa, if she ever came home. If he left her alone here and something happened to her, he would find it hard to live with himself. No, he would definitely make sure he didn’t lose her. He couldn’t.
But when he spoke to Mariko about getting Marielle a new identity, he got a frosty reception.
‘Nick, I understand that you’re concerned for her, but you seem to have forgotten something.’
‘What’s that?’
‘This job ended when Max was killed. My father owed Max a favour and he honoured that obligation. We spent money doing it. And you are still spending it while you stay with Marielle in Germany. And by the way, do you know how difficult and expensive it is to create a new identity for someone?’
She was obviously exasperated. So was he.
‘So you expect me to leave her totally exposed to Dubrovsky, is that it?’
‘It’s not your concern. In this business, you finish the assignment and you move on. If you’re so worried about her, take her with you.’
‘She won’t leave Germany.’
Mariko sighed. ‘Fine. She must know the risks. You told me earlier that you would wind this up by the end of October. We have more work for you after that. If you aren’t available on November 1st, we can’t use you anymore. Your relationship with the Crimson Dragon Society will be terminated.’
‘I see.’ That gave him pause for thought. ‘I’ll let you know.’
He hung up. So now he had an ultimatum. He could always go back to his old life in England, except it wouldn’t be his old life. Too much had changed. Or he could ask Marielle to come with him wherever he ended up next, should he stay working for the CDS. But he was pretty sure she wanted to stay right where she was. It rankled a little, but he had to admit that Mariko was right. Marielle knew the risks and had accepted them. That meant accepting the consequences, too.
He decided it was time to go to Heidelberg and pick up whatever they’d left behind at Alix’s apartment. He had left a few things of no real importance. Most of it belonged to Kamiko, including a laptop that really should have been collected by now. He wanted the laptop back, but it was expendable. It was encrypted to the hilt; no one without the proper authorisation would ever be able to use it. This was simply the last thing he needed to do before this assignment came to an end. He still had the keys, so getting in wouldn’t be an issue.
Marielle came with him. They started late morning and reached Heidelberg late afternoon. It felt strange to be coming back after all that had happened since they were last here. When they got into the building and walked up the stairs to the apartment, Nick half expected Alix to still be in residence. She’d open the door and they could rewind reality, with a happier ending this time. Marielle brought him back to earth.
‘There might be new tenants by now,’ she said. ‘What will we say?’
‘We’ll ask what they did with all our stuff. It must be somewhere.’
They had reached the front door. Nick pressed the bell and waited. The door was solid and they couldn’t hear any sounds from inside.
‘There’s nobody here,’ he said. But just as he was about to insert the key, the door opened.
A man a few inches taller than Nick stared out at them. In his sixties and unshaven, with swept-back grey hair and brown eyes. He was strongly built and looked capable. He didn’t say anything, just questioned them with a slight raise of the eyes.
‘We were here a while ago, staying with Ms Strauss
,’ said Nick. ‘We left some things behind. Wondered if we could collect them.’
The man relaxed a little. ‘You must be Nick,’ he said.
Nick couldn’t hide his astonishment. ‘That’s right. Who are you?’
‘Helmut Strauss, Alix’s father. Come in.’
They followed him into the lounge. One corner was stacked high with cardboard removal boxes, otherwise it looked much as Nick remembered it.
‘Sit down, please. Drink? There’s only whisky.’
‘I’ll have one,’ said Nick. ‘Marielle?’
She shook her head. Helmut Strauss nodded and smiled at her and then went to fetch the whisky. He came back with a bottle and two glasses.
‘I shipped what I thought was yours back to Mariko, in Japan,’ he said as he poured the drinks. ‘Mostly clothes, but there was also a laptop computer.’
Nick took his drink. ‘Of course, it was you who introduced Alix to the Mashidas, wasn’t it? I’d forgotten.’
‘Yes,’ said Helmut, taking a seat. ‘Yoshi told me what happened. I also went to see Count von Essen and he told me a little more. I’ve been living here for the last few weeks. Intended to clear the place out, but I haven’t got very far with that.’
Nick wondered if Helmut Strauss knew that Alix had got killed trying to protect him from Dubrovsky’s thugs. He thought it best not to open that can of worms.
‘I’m so sorry about Alix,’ said Marielle. ‘I’m afraid if anyone is ultimately responsible, it’s me.’
‘You think so? I don’t find it useful to apportion blame to anyone. Except that man Dubrovsky. It was him who sent them to kill you.’
‘Yes. Actually, I will have that drink. Don’t get up, I know where the kitchen is.’
‘You’re welcome to look around and see if there’s anything I missed,’ said Helmut to Nick, as Marielle left the room.
‘If you don’t mind.’ Nick stood up and went to what had been his and Kamiko’s bedroom. Last time he’d seen the laptop it had been on the desk in here. It wasn’t there now and nor was there anything else here that belonged to either of them. He checked Max’s room, with the same result. He went back into the lounge.
‘Looks like you got everything,’ he told Helmut. ‘What will you do with the rest of the place?’
‘The tenancy is paid till the end of the year. I’ll move it all out in stages. It’s amazing just how much junk my daughter managed to accumulate. Lots of books of course, but she didn’t seem to throw anything away.’ He pointed at the television. ‘Who keeps VHS players anymore?’
Nick followed the outstretched finger. ‘Actually, she got that for us to use.’ He stopped. ‘That’s odd…’
He walked over to the TV and knelt down. There were two VHS players here now, where before there’d only been one. ‘Where did the second one come from?’
‘Ah,’ said Helmut. ‘I found it in her wardrobe when I was clearing it out. So I brought it in here to join its friend.’
Nick stared at the machines. The one on top had two cables attached. One for the TV, and one for...
‘No, she didn’t have time,’ he muttered to himself. He tried to connect a cable from one VHS player to another. It connected. He tried to think back. Alix had been here alone the night they’d watched the original tape of Dubrovsky strangling Liesa. Marielle had gone to bed and he’d gone to the Main Street with Kamiko and Max. So she did have time. He looked at Marielle, who seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
‘She made a copy,’ said Nick. Marielle’s eyes were wide with amazement.
‘What are you talking about?’ said Helmut.
Nick pushed his fingers into the slot of the machine on the top. There was a tape inside it.
‘Alix, you clever, clever woman.’ He hooked up the other cable to the television and plugged everything in. He tried to stay calm as he fiddled with the remote control, looking for the video channel. Finally, he found it. He pressed play.
There was some grey grainy static, then they got the picture. Helmut Strauss sat up straight, his drink forgotten. Marielle gasped. Nick was transfixed.
‘You’re watching a murder,’ he told Helmut. ‘This is Dubrovsky with a girl called Liesa. And your daughter had the presence of mind to copy it.’
Marielle had looked away, and he turned it off. They all sat in stunned silence.
‘This changes everything,’ said Nick. ‘This time, I’ll make a digital copy. There must be some way of linking a laptop and a VHS player.’
‘Then what will you do?’ enquired Helmut.
‘Send it to the public prosecutor, here in Germany.’
‘This Dubrovsky is high up in the Russian government, isn’t he?’
‘He can still be charged with the murder of a German national, can’t he?’
Helmut thought for a moment. ‘Yes. How far you would get with a case like that, though, is difficult to say.’
‘We have to try, Nick,’ said Marielle.
‘I have a suggestion,’ offered Helmut. ‘I am retired from German Intelligence. But I still have contacts. When you’ve made your digital copy, email the file to me. I will deal with the public prosecutor and I can also help drive the publicity. I’ll show it to selected members of the press, here. In fact, we’ll go international.’
‘Yes, the more pressure the better,’ agreed Nick. He felt almost jubilant. ‘This time, we’ll ruin the bastard.’
They accepted Helmut’s offer of dinner and a place to stay for the night. Over dinner, he told them that he lived in Munich, about four hours’ drive time from Heidelberg. He had seen Alix about twice a year, but had no idea about her involvement in Nick’s assignment. He found out about that when he rang Yoshi Mashida to ask if her death was connected in any way to her work with the CDS.
‘So, perhaps you could say I am ultimately responsible for what happened,’ he said to Marielle. ‘I was the one who introduced them.’
Marielle appreciated the gesture, but she still felt she should bear some responsibility. She said as much to Helmut.
‘Don’t dwell on it,’ said Helmut. ‘It will only make you bitter. The best thing we can do now is make this man Dubrovsky pay.’
They left Heidelberg the following morning, with the tape and one of the VHS players. When they got to Rostock they found an electrical store, where Nick bought a VHS conversion kit. Back at the house he set up the software and connected his laptop to the video player. It was ridiculously easy to make a digital copy and an hour later he had emailed the file to Helmut Strauss.
Over the course of the next week, Helmut swung into action. He took the tape to the public prosecutor’s office and demanded an investigation. At the same time, he invited a number of selected journalists to a viewing. Given the nature of the tape, he didn’t want to give them copies that might end up all over the internet. There was also the issue of the tape’s provenance. Helmut tried to cover that up as much as possible by saying that the tape had been recorded by a member of a foreign intelligence service who couldn’t be identified, and in any case was now dead. He did give some broad hints however, that the murders at the von Essen estate outside Dresden might be linked to a failed attempt to recover the tape by the man featured in it. For the moment, he wanted to remain as an off the record source of all this information.
It was enough for a very juicy story, which the media found hard to resist. Within 24 hours the story was in a number of the German broadsheets and tabloids. Dubrovsky was named, if not shamed, and of course the newspapers were at pains to point out that these allegations were far from proven. The question they all posed was: - would the public prosecutor’s office be following up on them? A day later, a spokesman for that organisation made it clear that they would like to interview Mr Dubrovsky about those allegations. Privately, they were furious with Helmut for forcing their hand, but the damage had been done.
The story spread across Europe. The Russian Ministry of Culture was asked for a response and Dubrovsky was cornere
d on the streets of Moscow by journalists, asking for a comment. Neither the Ministry nor Dubrovsky would deign to say anything. A week later, an official statement was released to the press. In it, Dubrovsky denied that he was the man in the video. He accused the western intelligence services of fabricating the tape and added that his position gave him diplomatic immunity, which exempted him from all charges. He repeated all this in a television interview later the same day. When it aired on German television on the evening news, both Marielle and Nick were watching.
‘He’s going to get away with it,’ said Marielle. ‘I can’t believe it.’
‘He looks pretty shaken up, though,’ replied Nick. ‘But I think you’re right. It will never go to trial.’
They couldn’t help but be disappointed. Marielle distracted herself by working on Louisa’s petition, which had just passed the 100,000 signature mark. It was forwarded to the chancellor’s office by Amnesty, with a request that some political pressure be brought on the Russian Federation to release Louisa and her friends.
Then a number of things happened at once. A member of the German public prosecutor’s office sent an encrypted digital copy of the tape to his opposite number in Russia, politely asking what he intended to do about it. The Russians promised to ‘look into it.’
In the meantime, Helmut had learned that a trade delegation from Germany would be in Moscow a few days later. Russia was very keen to strengthen economic ties with Germany. The German team had been instructed to hint that if the Russian authorities would either demonstrate a willingness to investigate the charges against Dubrovsky or consider releasing Louisa Bach, then it would help seal the deal. Helmut passed this on to Nick and Marielle, and they waited to see if anything would come of it.
A week after the trade delegation returned to Germany, they had their answer. The TV news reported that due to an unspecified illness, Yulian Dubrovsky had been forced to step down from his role as minister of culture. Furthermore, given the length of time since the alleged crime he was accused of had taken place and the doubtful authenticity of the video footage, there would be no charges brought against him. He would be retiring from public life.